Since the terroristic attack on the World Trade Center on september 11th, 2001 and the following invasion by the Allied forces in Afghanistan in order to fight the Taliban regime and Al-Quaida, the Western countries are involved in an ongoing conflict which seems never to stop.

The situation in 2010

After nine years of war the situation still remains unstable. The set up afghan government turns out to be corrupt and more and more people are dying on both sides. Which again provides radical Islamist groups an even better and stronger breeding ground for their resistance.

The two paths: Stay or Leave?

What shall we do?

Pull out the troops, because this war can't be won, but risk lots of blood in another civil war, and maybe a much worse and more dangerous scenario? Or shall we stay and take the risk of being trapped in a never-ending conflict, which will cost a huge amount of money, blood and tears.

A Map of Scenarios

When we started researching this topic we very quickly saw, that the debate whether to pull out the troops, staying or even enforcing is not too much about arguments, it’s a battle of possible scenarios. Every side seems to have their own positive and negative visions of how things will happen in the future if certain steps are done. The resulting map
The Afghan Conflict - A Map of Possible Scenarios is the attempt of a summary of the most popular possible scenarios around the afghan conflict, according to a pullout or stay of the Allied troops. And is based on interviews with journalists, politicians and political foundations.

Please notice that our goal was never to display the full consequences in every detail because in such a complex process and especially when you try to make future predictions this is never possible. But we do give an overview about the main problematics and its complexity.

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The Concept

The Afghan Conflict - A Map of Possible Scenarios starts with the current timeline, a single line on the map. Which then splits into more and more possible future scenarios currently discussed. The scenarios split and join, or lead to other ones according to events that may take place or decisions made.
The design is pure and minimalistic, using only lines and typographic elements, which does not resemble the ugliness of a war, but helps understanding a complex structure of problems without being visually manipulated by polemic images.

Detail of some »leaving« scenarios.

Split and join of future paths.

You can buy the map

The final print is now 164cm x 90cm big, with a bit more white space on top and bottom. Please don't hesitate to contact us to get your own. It's 35.00€ plus shipping.
order [at] theafghanconflict.de

164cm x 70cm Print

For any further information or feedback please feel free to contact us via info [at] theafghanconflict .de

The Afghan Conflict - A Map of Possible Scenarios - project has been initiated by the lecture Politikvisualisierung in winter 2009/2010 at the Fachhochschule Potsdam.

Special thanks for the big support to Susanne Köbl (Spiegel), Can Merey (dpa) & Hauke Friederichs (ZEIT)

And we would also like to thankThe Heinrich Böll Stiftung, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Markus Horeld (ZEIT), Karl-Heinz Niedermeyer (SPD), Katrin Schmidberger (Bündnis 90 die Grünen), Klaus Hatzenbuehler (BMVg) and all the others we have been talking to.